Microsoft To Ship Speech Server 2007 by Year-End

Microsoft will begin beta testing Speech Server 2007, the latest version of
its interactive voice response platform for call centers, in May and plans final
release before the end of the year.

At the top of the list of additions, Speech Server 2007 will finally add native
support for Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML). It also will provide
enhanced support for Speech Application Language Tags (SALT), according to a
Microsoft statement.

“With the newly included VoiceXML support, customers will be able to
write World Wide Web Consortium’s VoiceXML 2.1-compliant applications
within Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and deploy those applications, or existing
VoiceXML 2.1-compliant applications, on Speech Server 2007,” the statement
said. The company also announced it has joined the VoiceXML
Forum at the Promoter level.

The update will also add a .NET Framework-based application programming interface
(API) for low-level access to core Speech Server functions, to enable customers
and partners to build applications on the Speech Server API using JavaScript,
C# and other .NET programming languages.

Speech Server 2007 will also add native support for voice over IP (VoIP) protocol,
as well as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and Real-Time Transport Protocol
(RTP).

Microsoft will include Speech Server Analytics Studio and Speech Server Business
Intelligence Tools to give customers the ability to generate customizable, detailed
usage reports. The Analytics Studio will provide a variety of predefined reports
that let a user drill down from high-level analysis all the way to actual call
events and audio files.

Speech Server Analytics Studio is built on SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services,
so it will enable developers to write their own custom and ad hoc reports. In
addition, Speech Server Business Intelligence Tools will be able to report long-term
views of caller behavior by creating blocks of large volumes of caller data
that can be reviewed using online analytical processing, the company said.